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US strikes Iran-backed group in Syria after deadly attack on coalition base
US strikes Iran-backed group in Syria after deadly attack on coalition base
(about 3 hours later)
Airstrikes in retaliation to attack on base in north-east by suspected Iranian-made drone that killed US contractor
Airstrikes in retaliation to attack on base in north-east by suspected Iranian-made drone that killed US contractor
The US has carried out airstrikes on facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in Syria in retaliation to a drone strike in Syria that killed a US contractor and injured five American troops.
The US military has carried out airstrikes against Iran-backed forces in retaliation for an attack that killed an American contractor and wounded five US troops.
The attack by a suspected Iranian-made drone on a coalition base in north-east Syria and the US response threaten to upend recent efforts to de-escalate tensions across the wider Middle East, whose rival powers have made steps toward détente in recent days after years of turmoil.
A day after the deadly attack on US personnel in Syria, which Washington blamed on a drone of Iranian origin, sources said a US base in Syria’s north-east was targeted in a new missile attack. US officials said there were no US casualties in the incident on Friday.
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said in a statement that the American intelligence community had determined the drone was of Iranian origin, but offered no other immediate evidence to support the claim.
The latest violence could further aggravate already strained relations between Washington and Tehran amid stalled efforts to revive a nuclear deal and Iran’s military support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The airstrikes were conducted in response to today’s attack as well as a series of recent attacks against coalition forces in Syria” by groups affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, Austin said.
“We’re going to work to protect our people and our facilities as best we can. It’s a dangerous environment,” the White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said on CNN.
Iran relies on a network of proxy forces through the Middle East to counter the US and Israel, its arch regional enemy.
Although US forces stationed in Syria have been targeted by drones before, fatalities are rare.
The Pentagon said two of the wounded service members were treated on-site, while three others and the injured contractor were transported to medical facilities in Iraq.
The Pentagon said the US strikes by F-15 jets on Thursday targeted facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
Overnight, videos on social media purported to show explosions in Syria’s Deir ez-Zour, a strategic province that borders Iraq and contains oil fields. Iran-backed militia groups and Syrian forces control the area, where there have also been suspected airstrikes by Israel in recent months allegedly targeting Iranian supply routes.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that monitors the war in Syria, said the US strikes had killed eight pro-Iranian fighters in Syria.
Iran and Syria did not immediately acknowledge the strikes, nor did their officials at the United Nations in New York respond to requests for comment.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm the toll.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, reported the American strikes killed six Iranian-backed fighters at an arms depot in the Harabesh neighbourhood in the city of Deir ez-Zour. The Observatory, which relies on a network of local contacts in Syria, said US bombing at a post near the town of Mayadeen killed two fighters.
Iran’s state Press TV, which said no Iranian had been killed in the attack, quoted local sources as denying the target was an Iran-aligned military post, but saying that a rural development centre and a grain centre near a military airport had been hit.
A separate American strike hit a military post near the town of Boukamal along the border with Iraq, killing another three fighters, the Observatory said.
“We will always take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing,” army general Michael “Erik” Kurilla, who oversees US troops in the Middle East, said in a statement.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards, which answer only to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have been suspected of carrying out attacks with bomb-carrying drones across the wider Middle East.
The US strikes were in response to an attack earlier on Thursday by a drone against US personnel at a coalition base near Hasakah in north-east Syria.
In recent months, Russia has begun using Iranian drones in its attacks on sites in Ukraine. Iran has issued conflicting denials about its drones being used in the war, though western countries and experts have tied components in the drones back to Tehran.
Three service members and a contractor required medical evacuation to Iraq, where the US-led coalition battling the remnants of Islamic State (IS) has medical facilities, the Pentagon said.
The exchange of strikes came as Saudi Arabia and Iran have been working towards reopening embassies in each other’s countries. The kingdom also acknowledged efforts to reopen a Saudi embassy in Syria, whose president, Bashar al-Assad, has been backed by Iran in his country’s long war.
The other two wounded US troops were treated at the base, it said. On Friday, the Pentagon said the injured personnel were in stable condition.A US base at the Al-Omar oil field in Syria was targeted with a missile attack on Friday morning, according to the Lebanese pro-Iranian TV channel Al Mayadeen and a security source.
Gen Michael “Erik” Kurilla, the head of the American military’s central command, warned American forces could carry out additional strikes if needed. “We are postured for scalable options in the face of any additional Iranian attacks,” Kurilla said in a statement.
Diplomacy to de-escalate the crisis appeared to begin immediately around the strikes. Qatar’s state-run news agency reported a call between its foreign minister and Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser. Doha has been an interlocutor between Iran and the US recently amid tensions over Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Qatar’s foreign minister also spoke around the same time with the Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
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Austin said he authorised the retaliatory strikes at the direction of Joe Biden.
Kirby said that attack was ineffective and there were no US casualties.
The US under Biden has struck Syria previously over tensions with Iran. In February and June 2021, as well as August 2022, Biden launched attacks there.
It is not uncommon for Iranian-backed groups to fire missiles at US bases in Syria after they are hit with airstrikes.
Dareen Khalifa, a senior Syria analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said that while Thursday’s exchange of strikes came at a sensitive political moment due to the “overall deterioration of US-Iran relations and the stalling of the nuclear talks”, she did not expect a significant escalation.
US forces were first sent into Syria during the Obama administration’s campaign against IS, partnering with a Kurdish-led group called the Syrian Democratic Forces. About 900 US troops are in Syria, most of them in the eastern part of the country.
“These tit-for-tat strikes have been ongoing for a long time,” Khalifa said, although she noted they usually did not result in casualties.
US troops have come under attack by Iranian-backed groups about 78 times since the beginning of 2021, according to the US military.
While “the risk of an escalatory cycle is there”, she said, “I think the Biden administration won’t be eager to escalate in Syria now and will instead have a relatively measured response”.
The US deployment, which former president Donald Trump nearly ended in 2018 before softening his withdrawal plans, is a remnant of the larger global war against terrorism that had once included the war in Afghanistan and a far larger US military deployment to Iraq.
US forces entered Syria in 2015, backing allied forces in their fight against the Islamic State group. The US still maintains the base near Hasakah in north-east Syria where Thursday’s drone strike happened. There are roughly 900 US troops, and even more contractors, in Syria, including in the north and farther south and east.
While IS has lost the swathes of Syria and Iraq it ruled over in 2014, sleeper cells still carry out hit and run attacks in desolate areas where neither the US-led coalition nor the Syrian army exert full control.
Since the US drone strike that killed Gen Qassem Suleimani of the Revolutionary Guards in 2020, Iran has sought “to make life difficult for US forces stationed east of the Euphrates”, said Hamidreza Azizi, an expert with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
“Iran increased its support for local proxies in Deir ez-Zour while trying to ally with the tribal forces in the area,” Azizi wrote in a recent analysis. “Due to the geographical proximity, Iraqi groups also intensified their activities in the border strip with Syria and in the Deir ez-Zour province.”
